This invention relates to buildings, building components, building subassemblies, and building assemblies, and to methods of constructing buildings. This invention relates specifically to building structure elements, and to the issue of worker safety during the construction of buildings.
From time to time, injuries occur during building structure elements, including to workmen who fall from an elevated height.
There are standard and required practices to provide capture and support material below workers who are working at substantial height above a supporting surface, to protect them, namely to catch and support them if/when they fall. A typical such material is a net-like material, which acts as a passive fall-protection system.
According to the prior art, first the net is installed; the work is performed, and then the net is taken down. Installing and taking down the net is a labor intensive, and therefore a costly, process. Given the time and cost involved in using a net, such netting is sometimes not used, whereby the workers, who are supposed to be protected by netting, remain at risk. Because use of netting has not been adopted in essentially all high-elevation jobs, the workers working on corresponding such jobs remain at risk, whereby netting, alone, is not an operationally acceptable solution for worker safety.
In the alternative, no net is used, workers working at substantial heights above a safe support are required to be tied or tethered to the structure being constructed or otherwise worked on.
But tethers, too, have only limited effect. Sometimes the limited effect is caused by contractor failure to enforce rules and/or regulations which require use of tethers. Sometimes the limited effect is caused by worker failure to follow instructions,
Whatever the cause, when a worker does not attach a required tether, or while a tether is being attached, detached, and/or moved, the worker is at risk.
Accordingly, there is a need for a passive fall protection system which, once installed, cannot be avoided, and which does not require a proactive act on the part of the individual worker in order to be effective.
There is further a need for an open-mesh web/net as part of a fall protection system.
There is still further a need for a more cost-effective open-mesh web/net as part of a fall protection system where the open-mesh web/net can be left in place after use, and incorporated into the structure of the finished building.
There is further a need for a method of installing a fall protection system where an open-mesh web/net is installed over an open expanse and about the outer perimeter of a generally encompassed space, and is held in place by a perimeter band.
These and other needs are alleviated, or at least attenuated, or partially or completely satisfied, by novel products and methods of the invention.